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It killed more than 63,000 Indian women in India in 2015. That’s almost a-fourth of all cancer deaths recorded amongst women in 2015, according to estimates by the Indian Council for Scientific Research.
The numbers are alarming.
Almost all cervical cancer is caused by one of the 170 strains of the human papilloma virus or HPV. Since the virus is mostly sexually transmitted, the myth is that only ‘adventurous women’ will get the disease. But adventurousness is hardly a prerequisite for this cancer. The virus is so common that skin-to-skin contact (and not really and intercourse) is enough to transmit the STD.
It affects about 80% of all women under the age of 50 without them ever knowing about it, the immune system of nearly 90% women will clear the virus on their own. However, the virus is not without a risk.
HPV vaccine has been around for almost a decade. Gardasil and its counterparts protect against the disease by using virus like particles to boost the immune system. The vaccine is recommended for young girls before they become sexually active and therefore have never been exposed to any strain of the virus.
This also implies that the safety and efficacy of the cervical cancer vaccine can offer limited benefits to those who were sexually active prior to 2006 (that’s when the vaccine first became available).
Carrying HPV is not the end. HPV is a precursor to future complications, but it is no guarantee. The virus can stay in your body for up to a decade before turning cancerous - so a regular pap smear test is a blessing!
According to the Centre for Disease, Atlanta, “ the HPV vaccine is extraordinarily effective at preventing infection, being at least 99% effective against the four most odious subtypes of infection in young women”.
Yet, there is a strong opposition towards the vaccine.
Side-effects like, dizziness, nausea, long-term pain, are not uncommon and are warned of in literature given with the vaccine. There have been sporadic cases of guillain barre syndrome, a rare nervous system disorder within six weeks of vaccination.
Another reason for rejecting the vaccine by parents of young girls, another reason to consider the vaccine is that it is still not clear whether antibodies induced by the vaccine have a shelf life. So the protection might not last a lifetime.
Now this is true of other vaccines as well. See how tetanus, chicken pox, measles - all these childhood vaccines need 10- yearly boosters because antibodies don’t last forever.
A major concern appears to be that without the fear of genital warts or cervical cancer, young people will become more promiscuous.
The dangers of HPV sound pretty darn disturbing but there are a few things to understand about this virus.
There are a lot of scary statistics around - at one point the World Health Organisation said, half of all sexually active women will contract the virus in their lives - but the fact is that only an unlucky 10% of women do not produce the antibodies necessary to defeat the invaders on their own.
It is impossible to know whether you or your partner fall in that ten percent group. There are no such tests which tell you whether your body is making antibodies against the virus or not.
So get regular pap smear tests, it’s your cervix after-all, you deserve to know what’s happening in there. Even if you get an abnormal result, the important thing to remember is that things aren’t hopeless – even if your results are scary, you’re better off for having caught things early on.
Also Watch: 6 Surprising Things That You Didn’t Know Cause Cancer
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Published: 06 May 2016,08:07 PM IST